CYPRUS Airways (CY) chairman Consantinos Loizides hinted yesterday that the national carrier would not rule out redundancies in the airline if warranted.
Loizides was speaking after a crucial meeting between the airline’s board and the ministers of Finance and Communications and Works to discuss the company’s finances.
Asked by reporters if redundancies were in the offing, Loizides said: “If and when it is proved that there are surplus staff, there is a clear procedure on this issue and we will face it with the unions as a real issue to be discussed.
“We have never hidden our position from any union that if there are surplus staff in any department then measures must be taken as provided for.”
Loizides said that he was well aware of the unions’ position that CY could hardly claim to have surplus employees when it regularly employed seasonal staff.
He said what was being done now was to examine by the end of February the airline’s entire financial situation in order to face the problems of 2003, and to find a more productive way for the company to function in the future. This would include ways to increase revenue, cut costs and increase productivity, he said. He also talked of restructuring flight schedules.
In September last year, senior managers and financial advisers warned that if CY continued on its present course, it would be bankrupt by next year, and that urgent and painful measures needed to be taken.
The airline, which is majority owned by the government, is expected to clock up close to £30 million in losses for 2003 after a number of external and internal factors plunged the company into one of the worst years in its history.
The airline faces several investigations relating to disastrous financial deals, and enters 2004 faced with stiffer competition and the prospect of hard bargaining with whoever wins the contract to operate the island’s two new airports.
Productivity is also an issue. It was revealed this month that management had written warning letters to 180 of its 200 employees who had each taken over 100 uncertified sick days in the past six years. Several had taken 400 and 500 hundred days. The allowance of uncertified sick days is five per annum.
Speaking after yesterday’s meeting, Finance Minister Marcos Kyprianou said he had asked the board to submit a complete and detailed analysis of the company’s financial situation plus specific explanations of how they planned to solve the problems. He said he would brief the Cabinet as the government was the main shareholder, but said he expected the board to try and sort out the airline’s problems without any political intervention.
“On the other hand, there will be political support when and if it is needed to make changes so that the company can survive and function profitably in the future,” he said.
Kyprianou said the board had briefed the two ministers on the investigation into the sale of aircraft during the fleet renewal and that the results would be on their desks next month.
